Things I'm avoiding

Besides grading, I'm avoiding three things that all would be good for me. One is doing some stretching (or even physical therapy) for my back, which got worse after the last big epic snow shoveling session. Folks have been suggesting PT, but that would involve figuring out how to get that covered by insurance, and I don't have the bandwidth for that right now.

The second thing is cleaning my study. I might work on this during my spring break (though I'll be doing something else then that I've been putting off--taxes). Cleaning up this room might make it less depressing to sit in here to work. Might make it easier to find things, too.

Speaking of finding things, the other thing I'm putting off cleaning up is my LibraryThing account. Does anyone still use LibraryThing? I used to faithfully record all my book purchases in it, and I even recorded which boxes I had put which books in when we moved from Taiwan. But like my study, my LibraryThing is a mess. It looks like I haven't added anything to it in over 10 years. The reason I mention it is that I'm having trouble finding some of my books (or finding out if I even own particular books that I thought I owned). Something else to clean up one of these days?

I'm mainly writing this because I see I only have one post for February. Now I have two.

New title for my offline journal?

It occurred to me this morning to change the name of my offline journal, which I've been keeping for the better part of 20 years. Right now it's called "Thoughts and Frustrations," which comes from the original purpose of the journal, which was to be a place where I would brainstorm, draft, and reflect on the process of my dissertation. Looking through some earlier journals this morning (as I often do on the first of the month), I have to admit I was impressed by my ability to focus so well on my academic work. 

After I finished the dissertation and moved to the US in 2011, the journal's purpose has broadened and my "thoughts and frustrations" have extended beyond academic work to life in general. I also suspect that it reflects less focused thinking more generally. I'm reminded of a study from a decade or so ago that used text mining to look at the novels of Agatha Christie to determine whether they indicated the onset of Alzheimer's. I had the thought this morning to run my 20 years' worth of journals through AI to see what conclusions it might come to regarding my cognitive state, but I have no desire to have all my private thoughts subjected to whatever Claude might want to do with them.

At any rate, based on those reflections, I am toying with the idea of renaming my offline journal "A Record of My Decline." Catchy, isn't it?

New book in the former native speaker's library

The Island: A Personal Account of Taiwan’s Extraordinary Transformation, by Mark O’Neill (Earnshaw Books, 2023).

OK, I said this wouldn't happen, but I heard about this book on the Formosa Files podcast where they interviewed the author. I'm looking forward to reading it, but right now I have to get back to grading!

Here's a review of the book from the Asian Review of Books.

The dangers of long, deep dives into the correspondence of a grumpy former diplomat

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this--you spend hours, days, weeks, months... reading the archived correspondence of your biographical subject as he goes through his life, inevitably aging and perhaps losing some of his inhibitions (if he ever had any) in the way he expresses himself. 

Then you turn to write some emails and find, to your horror (or perhaps not really to your horror!), that you're writing in something very closely approximating his voice. Somehow you've absorbed his jaded, cantankerous style of writing (which might not be that far from how you're feeling anyway--after all, it's pretty easy to feel jaded and cantankerous these days, amirite?), and before you know it, you've hit the "Send" button, and a message goes out that makes you sound like someone who is tired of life and mad at the world. 

Is Kerr doing that to me or are his letters just bringing to the surface what's already there?

2526A Makiki Heights Drive

This was George H. Kerr's address for about 26 years of his life in Hawaii. Out of curiosity, I googled it and was happy to find photographs of what used to be his apartment on the second floor of what's described elsewhere as an "'Old Hawaii' style home in a 'Tree Top' setting with private deck and ocean/Honolulu views." (My wife and I drove by the house years ago on a trip to Hawaii, but I never thought I'd get a look inside!) In case the websites or photos disappear, I'm going to copy them here, knowing that there's a chance that June Maeda Realty will ask me to take them down. (On the other hand, perhaps I'm helping them advertise this apartment!)

The house was built in 1934. I see from the description that the carpeting is new, but I imagine that the stove and the bathtub might have been there when Kerr lived there. It doesn't appear that this apartment has air conditioning, but perhaps the climate on Makiki Heights Drive is/was cool enough that a combination of fans and the large windows would suffice. 

In a letter from 1984, Kerr noted “the imminent loss of my apartment here which I have occupied for twenty-five years.” He had to leave after his landlord died. He moved to an apartment in Wilder House at 1114 Wilder Avenue, Honolulu, which I imagine was a challenging task, considering he was in his seventies at the time.

[Update, 8:12 p.m.] I was right about the last sentence. I just read that shortly after moving to his new apartment, he ended in the Emergency Room at the Queen's Medical Center and had to have surgery. (He doesn't say what kind of surgery.) He spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, it seems. A month later, he reported that he had lost 24 pounds "and apparently all my strength" since moving. He had to have someone help him organize his research materials because he didn't have the strength to do it himself.

First day of classes tomorrow

I'm really working up to the last minute on the GHK stuff. I just sent off some vignettes (?) about Kerr's work on a book about King Kalākaua, the publication of Licensed Revolution, and his failed attempt to write a second book about Okinawa. 

Now I need to turn my attention to teaching. I'm going back to teaching Advanced Interdisciplinary Writing this semester after a detour into teaching First-Year Writing for the first time in a couple of years. Compared to FYW, the advanced writing class is like an old friend. Tomorrow we'll just be introducing ourselves to each other, and I'll briefly introduce the course. It should be fairly typical of previous first days of class. But as I always tell my mom when I end a call with her, "We'll see what happens." Maybe something will surprise me (hopefully in a good way!).

Ha ha...

From a memo from George Kerr to the University Press of Hawaii, concerning their edits to his bibliography for Licensed Revolution.

and this...